The Hindu : Russian census mired in controversy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 10, 2002

International

International

Russian census mired in controversy

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW OCT. 9. The first post-Soviet national census that began in Russia on Wednesday is mired in a host of political, ethnic and social controversies that threaten to undermine its results.

The Government badly needs accurate information about the demographic, social and ethnic situation in Russia that has dramatically changed since the last census in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia's population is believed to have since shrunk from 151 million to around 146 million due to declining life expectancy and falling birth rates, but according to some estimates, Moscow may have three million residents more than the official figure of nine million.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has called the week-long census "the most important task'' facing the authorities this year. However, experts fear the census may yield a distorted picture as regional authorities are likely to tamper with population figures to pursue local interests and many people are reluctant to take part in the survey at all. According to Irina Zbarskaya, who is responsible for the census in the State Statistics Committee, some regions have supplied inflated preliminary estimates of local residents in order to win bigger social funds from the Federal budget. The census is headed for even bigger problems in ethnically defined regions where authorities are putting strong pressure on ethnic minorities to register as belonging to the titular ethnic group.

Many small ethnic groups that were officially non-existent under the Communist regime in the Soviet Union see the current census as a golden chance to assert their identity. If they get their way, Tatars and Bashkirs will become minorities in Tatarstan and Bashkortastan respectively, while Russians will emerge as the biggest ethnic group in both regions.

The census is expected to bring out several dozen long-forgotten ethnic groups in Russia.

Another danger to the census comes from angry residents who threaten to boycott the campaign in protest against delayed wages, crumbling and unheated municipal housing, or recent hikes of transportation tariffs.

People also fear that information they share with census takers may fall into the hands of tax inspectors or even organised crime.

The fears may be justified considering that CDs containing police and tax inspection files are freely available in the market. Academics think it was a big mistake to make the survey a voluntary affair as millions could avoid it. They say even a 10-per cent error margin could make the census useless.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

Stories in this Section

Iraq will not bend, declares Saddam

U.S. pushes E.U. membership for Turkey

U.S. resolution may be delayed

Russian census mired in controversy

India will not raise U.N. seat issue at E.U. summit

BBC reporter makes legal history

U.S. pursuing hostile policies: N. Korea

Pak. elections go hi-tech

Elect genuine leaders: Musharraf

4 killed in police firing in Sri Lanka